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Rising Nations, Rising Energy Demand

The rise of the emerging world nations—in population, access to technology and wealth aspirations—is propelling the world's most critical trends, including the changing face, and more global nature, of energy demand.

We already use all the energy we produce. The higher standard of living in the emerging markets, and another billion-plus people to be added to the planet in the coming decades, will force us to find more ways to supply an energy-starved world.

Emerging world economies present new challenges and potential solutions to sustain economic growth while balancing energy production, demand and intensity of use.

Growth in developing world energy demand will soon increase at an annual rate that is greater than total global energy use in 1970.

If the U.S. were to be erased tomorrow, taking with it all of its carbon emissions, the world would be right back at the same annual level of global emissions in just four years times, due to China's growth alone.

In less than a decade, China's boom will lead to it surpassing the U.S. in emissions per person, as its auto market and appetite for oil explode.

The energy surge is not an insurmountable problem, though. Innovations in drilling--led by the U.S. shale boom, improved energy and transportation market efficiency, and renewable power plant technology and off-grid solutions, will all be part of a global energy dynamic that can rise along with the rising nations of the developing world.

CNBC charts some of the most powerful shifts in the energy market that will shape global responses to increased energy demand from less mature, though booming, nations.